Retail industry loses legends in 2015
Some of the retail industry’s most innovative, influential and accomplished leaders passed away in 2015. The following is a look at some of those who made a difference and the impact they had on retail.
The following list is by no means exhaustive or intended in any way rank those who passed based on their accomplishments. Rather, the goal is to present in chronological order some of the most noteworthy individuals whose departure came to the attention of Retailing Today and recognize their accomplishments one more time.
Lillian Vernon: She grew a home business selling monogrammed pocketbooks and belts, into one of America's best-known mail-order businesses. Vernon and her family came to the United States in 1937 as Jewish immigrants from Germany fleeing Hitler. She was newly married and pregnant with her first child when she started her business in 1951. The Lillian Vernon Corp. was the first company owned by a woman to be listed on the American Stock Exchange, in 1987, according to the New York Times. Vernon is credited with being the first to create gift catalogs dedicated to Easter and Halloween. She lived to be 88.
Doug Tompkins: He founded The North Face in 1964 and co-founded the Esprit apparel company in 1968. Tompkins eventually sold his stakes in The North Face and Esprit and retired to Chile to use his fortune for environmental causes. He acquired hundreds of thousands of acres in Patagonia, a sparsely populated region of untamed rivers and natural beauty that straddles southern Chile and Argentina to create Pumalin Park, encompassing 716,606 acres of forest, lakes and fjords stretching from the Andes to the Pacific. He reached the age of 72.
Charles E. “Chuck” Williams: Williams was the founder of Williams-Sonoma. He lived to be 100. The Florida native took a trip to France in 1953 that inspired him to open the first Williams-Sonoma store in 1956 in Sonoma, Calif. Williams added more stores and distributed product catalogs and his approach to experiential retailing influenced countless merchants. Williams sold the company in 1978 and in 1983 Williams-Sonoma became a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bruce Dayton: One of five brothers, he helped build a department store that he and his sibling inherited in downtown Minneapolis into a trend-setting retailer company that would give rise to Target. He lived to be 97 and was the father of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. He was also a huge benefactor of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where he was a longtime trustee, providing more than $80 million in financial support more than 2,000 works of art worth additional millions.
Tom Stemberg: One of the retail industry’s true innovators, Stemberg was a co-founder of Staples and passed away at the young age of 66. With the backing of Bain Capital and its co-founder, Mitt Romney, Stemberg co-founded Staples in 1986, and went on to lead the company through a period of rapid growth to dominate the office products industry. A native of New Jersey, Stemberg went to Harvard to study organic chemistry, but ended up becoming a retailer. After leaving Staples, Stemberg joined the venture capital firm of Highland Capital Partners in 2005, where he served as a general partner. http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/staples-founder-tom-stemberg-dies
Leon Gorman: Gorman is the former president and longtime chairman of L.L. Bean., a company founded by his grandfather. Gorman served as chairman for 34 years and during his tenure the company experienced tremendous growth. When he became president in 1967 the company had one store, but Gorman oversaw efforts to modernize the business while adhering to a strong customer service culture.
Alfred Taubman: He founded the Taubman Company in 1950 and would go on to have a tremendous influence on the development and evolution of the shopping center industry. He opened his first mall in the late 1950’s, the 350,000-sq.-ft. Arborland in Ann Arbor, Mich., and during the following six decades the company he founded operated nearly 20 properties in the U.S., including the recently opened Mall of San Juan in Puerto Rico.
Bob Piccinini: The longtime chairman of Save Mart in California, he purchased the company in 1985 after working his way up in the retail industry. He joined Save-Mart as a box boy and later became a truck driver, store manager, VP of real estate and eventually president and CEO. He helped the privately held company succeed against larger rivals and grow to operate more than 200 stores.
Walter J. Salmon: As a longtime Harvard Business School professor, Salmon influenced generations of retailers during a 41 year career. He taught a wide variety of MBA courses during his tenure and also conducted extensive research in areas such as distribution, issues of organization and logistics, information systems and balancing consumer interests in breadth of selection with a desire for low prices
Leonard Lieberman: He was the former chairman and CEO of Supermarkets General, which owns Pathmark. Lieberman first served as general counsel of Supermarkets General, which was part of the ShopRite cooperative chain. The company opened and acquired additional locations and, in 1967, it left the ShopRite chain under the ownership of Supermarkets General and named its stores Pathmark. Lieberman became president of Supermarkets General in the early 1980s and assumed the role of chairman and CEO in 1983.